Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Traveling Doll Project on ADO is off to a great start! WOW! If you love art dolls and want to see some AMAZING (understated) work, you need to take a look at this link. I am on two teams but I will introduce you first to the team that is currently featured: Team Boneca with Jacqui of Odddollz and Bari of Baris Fairies. Each artist starts their doll anyway they wish - headless, head only, dressed, naked - well, you get the picture. Oh - here are some pictures....

I started out with this leather skirt that I finally came to grips with the fact that it was not going to fit me again...ever!

Hmmmm....this cage has been sitting on my workbench just waiting for a special project

I love all kinds of trim. I had this really, cool clasp that I had been wanting to use and since I wanted to make everything removable so my partners could work more easily with my doll, this worked perfectly! The trim has beads attached and then I added some feathers - could be used for wings, too....

Add the trim to the torso, the torso to the cage and now the doll awaits her face and hands; and with Jacqui and Bari's excellent sculpting skills, I am sure this doll is going to be EXCEPTIONAL!

I left wire exposed from the head and the arms so they could add their clay to the doll. Not sure how any of that works - I have only worked with cloth. I guess I figured they would sculpt the head/hands and poke a hole through the clay before they baked them so they could then slip on the wire I left exposed. STOP LAUGHING CLAY ARTISTS!! I don't know how it is done - I was guessing.

Here is the package that was shipped first to Jacqui in Canada. Our journals were to represent "a direction" for the doll to take but I really had no set path. I had been "obsessed" with the song "Mad World" (Tears for Fears) after I had hear Adam Lambert's version. It was such a sad song but his voice and the music is so beautiful at the same time. It just struck a cord with me that people (teens especially) are so obessessed with looking a certain way, trying to "fit in" to what their peers consider "cool" and how many are ignored, outcast without anyone seeing what is on the inside - which is what really counts, don't you think? In my high school years it was Janis Ian's song "At Seventeen".

I learned the truth at seventeen

That love was meant for beauty queens

and high school girls with clear skinned smiles

who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew

The Friday night charades of youth

were spent on one more beautiful

At seventeen I learned the truth...

Still relevant today....sad but true. ANYWAY....I guess it was appropriate that I sent my doll off into the world without a face - I will love the face I see when she is returned to me.

Now take a look at Jacqui's started doll. She said Ginny was a bit nervous but was reassured by Jacqui that all would be well on her travels.She is such a sweet pea AND she DOES look nervous! How do you do what you do Jacqui???

She is so sweet! I so look forward to her arrival in Michigan. She will be treated quite nicely and handled with loving care!

Bari's doll is, well I do believe that is left up to Jacqui and I to determine (which is one of the exciting aspects of this Traveling Doll Project!).

In Wynn's words:

"Well, this is certainly awkward...I’m naked and apparently quite bald. For that matter I’m not entirely certain of my gender. When I expressed my concerns to the woman I’ve been staying with, she said ‘all things come with time’, and left me in her guest room to entertain myself..."

It does bare repeating: fantastic work! I am in awe of my Team Boneca partners! This doll certainly leaves the door open for so many possiblities..."If you did all the things in life you were truly capable of, you would astound yourself" (Thomas Edison)